Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, May 19, 2024
by Madison Johnston, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will find us and transform us in the most familiar, foundational places.
It’s easy to focus on the imagery of wind and tongues in this passage, but we almost never focus on the imagery of the house these early Christians are sitting in together.
Houses were a big deal in the formation and growth of the church. For decades after Jesus’s death and resurrection, Christian worship didn’t happen in public. It didn’t even happen in dedicated buildings. It was an ad hoc kind of thing, popping up in the various houses of believers and their families; in the dwelling places of seekers and their friends.
This was mostly because Christians were persecuted in those early days. Their faith marked them as strange, subversive, and sometimes even dangerous, because its central messages were threatening to the political powers that reigned. But even within the church, itself—even among believers—there was a huge spread of different interpretations of who Jesus was and what he came earthside to do. Dogma was newly forming and the Christian identity was springing up in a very eclectic, very organic way. So, conversations, debates, vision casting, and worship at the home-base level made perfect sense for the early church. It’s where the early church made sense, for multiple reasons. It’s where the church needed to be.
The Holy Spirit could have found the disciples and infused them with gifts for ministry anywhere. She could have used a public demonstration of this miraculous wind and these equally miraculous tongues of fire to lend some legitimacy to the Christian cause—to show off a bit. It’s strangely beautiful that she chose to bring this Pentecost story to life in a home, instead. Perhaps the promise we can hear in this text today is that the Spirit will seek us out in the same kind of space—a foundational space where we’re comfortable. A personalized space where we’re genuine. A safe space where we can invite friends to join us. A space where we make messes—where we leave metaphorical dishes piling up in the sink and metaphorical speckles of toothpaste on the mirror.
Most importantly, the Spirit will find us in the place where we need to be to center on Jesus. And that’s where she will baptize us. Transform us. Prepare us to make the impossible possible through spiritual gifts that build up our community. What would it look like for the Spirit to come to your house today? How would it feel to be baptized by the Holy Spirit at your home base?
